Implanting of the Screw: The origins of Franken Stein
by TseTse-Witch
Summary: The dark past of Franken Stein was not something he liked to discuss. He wasn't crazy. He wasn't going mad. This was something he could do. Dis-no... not here. Stop. Please. Dissect. Cut. Learn. Rated T for violence, will go up to M later. Pairing: Spirit/Stein
1. Chapter 1

_**It hurt. It always hurt. He struggled and struggled but he could never move- those glassy, convex, black eyes just stared at him. He struggled to get free but was only met with a smile. "What have we learned today Franken?" The knife cut deeply into his exposed flesh. He wanted to vomit.**_

_**"I want to wake up now." He didn't want to look, he could feel her dragging the knife through the flesh on his abdomen.**_

_**"Don't be a bad little boy." he could hear buzzing- it was suddenly very hot, very sticky. There was more buzzing, tiny feet walking on his stomach. He could feel the furry head of the tiny fly burrow into his stomach's open cut.**_

_**This time he did vomit, as he felt it squirming inside him. Then another. Then another.**_

_**"You're so gross." he could hear her buzzing laughter as his abdomen started to swell with bugs. "Now, be a good boy and tell me what we learned."**_

_**"I WANT TO WAKE UP NOW!" he screamed and began struggling till his wrists began to bleed. And he kept going. Breaking his hands till they fit through the shackles. He clawed at his stomach with broken fingers trying to drag out the bloody winged flies that had been hiding in his skin. "I NEED TO WAKE UP! DEATH! HELP ME! DEATH Ah-" he stopped screaming, choking as he felt squirming in his throat, on his tongue. He started to cough. Started to puke. Flies spewed out of his mouth and squeezed their way through his eyes, tearing at his eyeball until he was blind with blood and wings. He clawed at his eyes, fingers sticky, hot with blood. It hurt.**_

_**It hurt so bad.**_

_**He was exploding...**_

* * *

Franken Stein woke up, face up on his bed in the DWMA. He was caked in sweat, his hands ached and his insides throbbed. He wanted to cry but he knew Spirit would hear him. He had been lucky enough to find someone who didn't mind being partnered with that weird, quiet kid. He wasn't going to get the reputation for being a crybaby too. Carefully, he lifted the stitched up white shirt he was wearing, peering anxiously at his stomach. There was a thin red line where her knife had been. He felt suddenly very hot, his face started to sweat, he couldn't hear well, he was dizzy and his ears throbbed. He gagged and a fly escaped his mouth.

He vomited onto the floor.

"Dude... the fuck?" Spirit must have heard him throwing up, he was sitting up in his bed looking over in the darkness at Franken, hunched over, trembling in all white, bile dripping from his lips. "Are you sick?"

"No." The answer was curt. Short. Every night these dreams. Every night she asked what he had learned. He wanted to wake up. To never sleep again.

"You keep getting sick at night. Are you pregnant?"

"That's morning sickness." Franken knew Spirit was only trying to cheer him up but he was in no mood. Every night. He only knew Spirit for a month. In that month every time he drifted off he'd see her face. He'd been seeing her for almost four months now, the glassy eyed lady. He thought they were stress dreams, he had always been weird. Other kids didn't like him. He was quiet, standoffish. He was worried about finding a partner. But he had a partner now- an older kid in fact- Spirit was a well known weapon, he was strong and popular, especially with the ladies.

Why was he still freaking out like this?

He hated sleeping. Staying awake for days at a time on caffeine and sugar to avoid sleeping.

"Franken...?" Spirit must have noticed some sort of change in his composure. He sounded worried. "Do I need to get the nurse?"

"I'm fine." He refused to meet Spirit's eyes. The thought of recollecting the dream- even to his weapon- made him feel crazy. He wasn't crazy. This was stress and nothing else.

"I don't know, Franken ... you look awful." Spirit was standing now. Franken wasn't sure when his red headed sempai had gotten up. "You're shaking..." Franken suddenly felt a warm hand on his shoulder. Spirit's hand. "You should see a doctor."

"I don't need one. It's just stress." He hated to be so curt but he didn't want Spirit thinking he was crazier than he all ready did. Spirit sat beside him on the bed and wrapped the blankets around his shoulders.

"You just look a little pale is all." Spirit was hugging him gently, comfortingly through the covers keeping him bundled up not to restrain him, as he first thought, but to console him. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"I told you. It's stress."

"Franken ... there's blood on your sheets." The white haired boy froze. He wanted to throw up again but there was nothing in his stomach but acid and bile. "Are you hurt?" He sounded worried. "Franken?" The boy pulled his sheets around himself blocking out the older boy's concern. "Franken!?" He flopped back onto the bed curling up. Ignoring the worried calls of his weapon.

* * *

**"What have you learned today?" Her fingernails were digging into his wrists holding him to the metal table. "What have you learned Franken Stein?" Her voice buzzed into his ears crawling around with its little feelers scratching at his ear canal.**

**"Nothing!" He was crying warm, viscous, sticky liquid down his face. Too thick for tears. It smelled like copper. "I don't know what you want from me!" She wouldn't stop digging her nails into his sides her fingers sliding around in his skin her bugs crawling in his muscles wiggling, hundreds of tiny feet squirming through his tissue.**

**"You're a scientist, right Franken Stein? A scientist like your daddy. A good solid man of science."**

**"Please stop hurting me..." his voice shook his tongue felt like it was vibrating with little wings.**

**"It's rude not to answer a lady's question." Her nails raked down into his chest. "Are you a scientist Franken Stein?"**

**"I... I am..." he knew he had better be honest. She knew everything he thought. The buzzing in his mind would share with her his secrets.**

**"Wrong." She took a scalpel from beside her. "You are no scientist you never bend morality to suit your curiosities, you never push the limit to make discoveries, you never see how things work on the inside..." she started scraping the scalpel over his clavicle and down between his nipples stopping at his belly button. "And if you aren't a scientist," she made a horizontal cut down around his waist, "and you are a Stein," she cut along the other side. "Then that just leaves one option doesn't it?" Her hands dug into the incision as she tore open the flesh on his chest. Bugs burst out of his body, swarming him. Choking him. Crawling into his eyes and mouth trying to get back in. "You're the experiment."**

* * *

Everyone in class was staring at him. He had promised himself not to fall asleep but here he was sitting in class, Spirit leaning over him. "Franken?" Spirit's hand was on his back.

"Sorry." He looked away.

"Lord Death, I think my meister is ill. May I escort him home?" Spirit didn't even check how Franken was feeling. He must have looked like shit because Lord Death nodded without question. Spirit's hands helped lift Franken from his desk, the same strong hands held him as he stumbled to walk on shaking legs.

"I didn't need to go home." Franken gave him a bitter look trying fruitlessly to break free of his protective hold and walk on his own trembling feet.

"Is it nightmares?" Spirit ignored his bitter protests.

"What?"

"Why you can't sleep? Is it nightmares?"

"No..." he looked away. It sounded crazy when he thought about it outside of slumber... about why he dreaded sleeping and would avoid it for days.

"Do you wanna sleep with me?" Franken did a double take at the offer.

"Don't be weird..." he refused to look at him.

"I don't mean like sex, I mean I will just sleep in bed with you. I know how restless you are... like you're afraid of sleeping..."

"No... it's too weird..."

"Just this once. I got a big date tonight so I might as well sleep now." Spirit opened the door and lay Franken on the bed. "Cause I am not getting any sleep tonight if you know what I mean."

"I don't want to think about it." Franken remarked dryly hoping his bitter attitude would get Spirit to change his mind. But despite this, Spirit climbed right into the tiny bed beside him.

He really didn't mind it. And that's what worried him. Spirit smelled nice... warm... soft... the feel of his body so close made Franken tingle all over in a strange way. The tingling was nice but it was traveling toward his groin and that weirded him out. He wanted to pull away but Spirit wrapped his arms around Franken like he was a teddy bear pulling him close. His groin tingled with strange heat but... he was able to go to sleep.

It was the best sleep he ever had.

Except he woke up before Spirit with a wet groin and a sore member.

He vaguely remembered dreaming of Spirit that night.


	2. Urges and Regression

"Hey! Franken! Did you get the homework for tonight?" Marie ran up to the young boy who was leaning against a tree outside. He stared blankly at her for a moment, mind racing with strange obsessions. "Franken?" She blinked looking around her trying to see the hellish visions that only existed in his mind's eye.

"Sorry... no..." he stood up moving deeper into the woods leaving her staring after him with a pining expression.

He collapsed in the forest behind the school, on his hands and knees dripping in sweat despite not having moved all that far. Old urges were coming back, crawling to his mind like bugs under his skin, wriggling their way to his brain. Urges he had not felt since his old days at the asylum, watching the white coats of the doctors turn red as they explored the mysteries of the hunks of humanityless flesh on their lab table.

_Cut_

The urges were back.

_Dissect_

His hands were shaking

_Rip_

There was a squirrel not too far off, he managed to catch it with a mix of his speed and well trained reflexes.

_Tear_

It was squirming in his hands, he used his soul wavelength to paralyze it.

_Experiment _

He could feel its racing pulse in his fingers.

_Learn_

He started to tear open it's skin with his bare hands.

_**You're a good boy Franken...**_

He was covered in its blood, he hadn't felt so happy in years. He started to sew the corpse back up. Everything rearranged.

* * *

**Thump-Thump**

_He could see his face reflected in the wide petrified eyes._

**Thump-Thump**

_Every little vein was throbbing with blood, reflected in the glassy surfaces of his eyes. _

**Thump-thump**

_Which eyes were more dead? _

**Thump-thump**

_His... at least the dog's eyes had something in them..._

**Thump-thump**

_Fear. _

"Franken...?"

**Thump-thump**

_Sticky red fingers prodding at the still beating heart. _

"Franken!?"

**Thump-thump**

_Cut. Slice. Rearrange. Dissect. _

"FRANKEN!"

**Thump-thump**

_Learn._

**Thump-thump **

_**Buzz**_

**Thump-thump**

_**Buzz**_

**Thump-thump**

_**Buzz**_

"FRANKEN STEIN!"

He felt himself pulled to his feet by an unknown force, tugging at the collar of his shirt. His eyes were torn away from the dog twitching on the ground, frozen there by fear combined with the meister boy's own wavelength and forced onto the face of a green eyed red head. Spirit's face was white with a mix of rage and disgust.

"What?" The answer was empty and flat.

"What are you doing!?" The scythe's voice was horrified, curt and aggressive, perhaps even afraid. "W- what are you doing to that poor dog!?"

"…" Franken continued to stare

"Answer me Franken!"

_Can't trust him._

"I was…" he faltered uncertainly.

_I was learning._

One thousand souls buzzing in her voice

"I was learning…" he repeats it robotically.

"Franken…?" The reply must have sounded off because Spirit's eyes had gone wide- well- wider… he was so obnoxiously dramatic…

"What?"

"I think you need to see Lord Death… you look… off…"

"So do you." After all, Spirit's eyes were practically the size of his face.

"Snap out of it Franken! This isn't like you!" He seemed upset for some reason. Was this the real Spirit? After all… he was the real Franken Stein… it was like being at home. All alone with Mommy in the cell. Daddy's voice calm, trained-

Mind in pieces.

"Give me the knife." Spirit's words sawed through the buzzing fog in his head. He felt his arm jerk back, away from the red head, instinctively.

"No."

"Give me the knife, Franken!"

"NO!"

_**Hurt him.**_

"NO!"

"Franken!" Sprit grabs his wrist, the hand with the knife uncurls itself at his touch. "I'm taking you to see Lord Death! You're freaking out!"

_**This is what happens when you trust people, they hurt you.**_

_**You have to cut him open.**_

_**See what's inside.**_

_**It's the only way to truly know what he's capable of…**_

"NO!" he screamed it as he shoved his other arm forward, hitting Spirit square in the nose. "I- I…" his words were drowned out by the buzzing in his throat. "Spirit…" the red head grasped his other hand, this time it was to restrain him. His heart raced in his chest, his eyes went wide, the pupils shrinking down and covering themselves in a protective and comforting glaze of madness. Everything was growing foggy and dim, he was losing his ability to hear, his face felt like it was on fire.

"Franken calm down…" Spirit squeezed his wrists, the pressure was something he could grasp enough to slowly escape the buzzing fog. "You're not in trouble… you just need some help…"

_**Cut him**_

"I'm here for you, Franken,"

_**Open him**_

"You're going to be okay…"

_**See what's inside**_

"I promise."

_**See what makes his body tick…**_

"I'm here."

_**Dissect**_


	3. Six Legged Hallucination

"Now… Franken…" Lord Death sat across from him sipping at his tea through the mask. Stein had his own mask on too, but his was made of flesh. "Spirit has voiced some concern about your behavior recently." He is met with more silence from the golden eyed boy. "Franken I'm going to need you to talk to me so I can help you…"

Why was it that when he needed the voice to give him words it never spoke up?

Never around Lord Death…

Maybe his essence was calming…

"What did you do to the dog, Franken?" Such calm, poise, he could mimic it if he tried, play Lord Death's own personality right back at him.

"What dog?"

"You know that won't work." the eyes of the mask narrowed. He was right. That approach may fool an innocent, gentle mind but Lord Death knew him too well. "What did you do to the dog, Franken?" he repeated the question more seriously.

"Nothing."

"The naïve little boy routine doesn't really work for you." he chuckled, lifting the tea to his mask. "We both know you're far too intelligent for that."

"I… was…" he looked at the little skull table, anything to avoid the empty black eyes of the Shinigami's mask.

"Dissecting?" the word sounded… wrong… the way the masked man said it. Franken shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "I thought we talked about this, Franken…" Lord Death didn't even sound mad.. and for some reason that just made him feel worse. "About these… urges…"

"I'm… sorry…" he wasn't actually sure if he was.

"I thought you were getting better."

"I.. was…"

"Then why did you do it, Franken?"

"I dunno…"

"I think you do know." He was speaking so calmly, acting like a father or something. It was supposed to be calming but it just made him more upset. He didn't understand the feelings this conversation was stirring up. "I can't help you if you won't talk to me…"

"Maybe I don't want your help…" he replied, his voice cracked betraying his internal stress. The masked man sighed, his shoulders visibly drooping.

"We took you out of that place to help you… you have a lot of potential, you could be the best meister to graduate from the Academy in all the years I have been running it." He was trying to build up the boy's trust, to win over his secrets. Franken knew this game. He had seen his father use this same tactic on many of his patients. He had seen him even use it on his mother. Well. _He_ wasn't going to fall for petty mind game.

"I'm sorry." he repeated, this time shutting off the part of his mind that made his voice shake. He still could not, however, bring himself to look at his teacher.

"I know how hard it has been on you Franken…"

"No you don't."

"You're a good kid." he was ignoring the little outburst. "With a lot of potential. But I am deeply worried about your mental state. Because-" Franken cut him off.

"Because of my mom?"

"No." Death told him firmly. "Who she was has nothing to do with who you are." Hearing that for some reason made the scythe meister's hands clench into fists, so tightly that his nails bit into his flesh. His eyes started to blur, they felt burning and hot. He couldn't tell if he was mad or… or relieved by the response. "I'm worried because you're brilliant, but your social development was slightly stunted by your upbringing. I was hoping Spirit would help fix that…"

"He's helped I guess…" he didn't want Spirit to get the short end of the metaphorical stick. Though, for the life of him the little meister in white could not figure out why it mattered.

"Not if you've gone back to this…"

"I slipped up once, it was a mistake…"

"Once…?" the black robed man brought his tea to his mask with a look of disapproval, of disbelief. The young white haired boy shifted nervously under the gaze of the animated mask. He could not look into the dark eyeless holes.

"Twice…"

Silence.

"Three… times…?" he stretched it out, weighing his teacher's response to see if he was believed of not. He was not. "So it may have been a few more times than that but who are you to judge! Your death! At least I don't always kill what I dissect!"

"Franken, you have no idea what my job entails." Lord Death remarked the goofy voice he used briefly slipped into something far more sinister. It made Franken's stomach buzz. He looked up, he could see flies crawling out of the vacant eye holes.

Flies…

"I have to go!" He stood quickly.

"But we haven't finished-"

"I have to go!" he fled from the room quickly rubbing his eyes trying to rub away the images of the flies scrambling from the eye sockets, of maggots pouring from the gaping mouth.

"Franken!?" Lord Death did not pursue him as he fled the meeting.

He didn't know where to go, his heart was racing, his stomach in knots. Feeling like this, feeling so sick, so weary, he decided the only place to go was the boy's bathroom. He vanished inside the hall bathroom staring into the mirror. His face was white, his eyes were sunken deeply into their sockets. He wondered if he looked more or less like a skull than Lord Death's mask.. probably less since at least he still had his bone white hair.

He reached up, touching the glass with his hand. It felt like it was crawling, wriggling, squirming under his fingers. His eyes started to bulge and blacken until they became the bulbous eyes of the black-eyed woman…

His nightmare…

He screamed and fell backward as maggots dripped from behind the mirror frame, onto his hand, trying to burrow into his skin. He scratched at them, trying to rip them from his flesh with his nails. Blood started to bubble up from the jagged wounds in his skin.

"Franken!?" As he fell two arms caught him, holding him up .

"Spirit…?" Bugs clambered over the red head's face, crawling out from his lips, wriggling free of his eyes, their wings flat on their fuzzy little backs, slicked over with blood. "Spirit!" He jerked away seeing the bugs crawling from Spirit's body onto his own.

"Franken! Calm down!" Spirit grabbed him again this time by the shoulders. "O-oh my God… you… your face… you're white as paper… you're shaking…" Stein felt himself drawn up against Spirit's chest, his body felt so warm… so familiar… comforting… "My God… Franken…"

"Spirit…" he started to cry. He hated himself for it too, so weak, so pathetic, unable to swallow tears or force the trembling emotion deep inside where it belonged.

_**Don't trust him…**_

"Franken…" Spirit was just holding him, letting him cry. "What's wrong…? Please… tell me…" He rubbed his back gently.

_**He is a monster…**_

"Spirit…" his hangs gripped the dark black fabric of his weapon's clothes. It was getting so wet from his tears.

_**He never liked you…**_

"I'm here for you Franken…" Spirit's other hand stroked his hair, softly, holding Franken's face against his chest, letting the younger boy sob.

_**He's full of lies… **_

"Spirit… I'm scared…"

_**If you tell him, you'll be locked up again…**_

"Of what, Franken? What's gotten into you…? Why are you so miserable..? What can I do…?

_**You don't want to go home, do you Franken?**_

"Spirit… I…"

_**He'll send you back.**_

"I can't…" Franken shook his head in misery, still crying into his chest. "I can't tell you. I can't!"

_**Cut him open, Franken…**_

"Please tell me Franken… I'm begging you…"

_**You'll find that he's full of lies…**_


	4. Monster

_What am I doing…?_

Franken's hands trembled on the gleaming blade as he stared wide eyed down at the sleeping figure sprawled out on the table before him. The expression on his face was so soft, so peaceful, so… trusting…

_**You know what you must do, Franken.**_

"S…Spirit…."

_**Don't back out now Franken…**_

"What if he wakes up!?"

_**He won't. You made sure of that…**_

"When you say it like that…I feel like a monster…" Who was he talking to… who did the voices belong to… were they his…? They had to be… who else could they belong to…?

_**CUT**_

His hands tremble and reluctantly, he started to lift up the fabric of Spirit's pajama top. The older boy's skin was warm… soft to the touch… he could feel every toned muscle, every breath his weapon took caused the skin to tighten and loosen with the rising and falling…

_**RIP**_

"Spirit…" Franken could feel his eyes blurring over, a hot wetness started to crawl down the sides of his cheeks.

_**TEAR**_

His hands were shaking so badly that he knew he would mess up, he would cut something he wasn't supposed to. But he lowered the knife anyway.

_**DISSECT**_

Slowly, he trailed the knife down, watching the blood dribble over his stomach, wiping it up with his fingers. It smelled strong, like copper and shame. His shame.

_Why am I doing this!?_

He made another incision as the tears came faster now. It hurt… he was cutting Spirit but it only hurt Franken… hurt him in his soul.

_**Stop crying.**_

"I…" he sniffed as tears mixed with the blood on the sleeping boy's stomach. "I can't!" he lowered his head so quickly the tears went flying. He curled his trembling hands into fists to steady them. He wanted to throw the knife away, to run and get a teacher to tell someone of what he did…

_**Look**_

"I don't want to! I don't want to do this anymore!"

_**Look Franken**_

He obediently looked up and instantly regretted it. He spun on his heels, falling to his knees as he vomited all over, onto the floor.

Maggots…

Thousands of them squirming in Spirit's body.

"Spirit!" He forced himself to stand, the scalpel in his grip, still dripping with Spirit's blood… crawling with the maggots from inside him. "Spirit… I can fix you…" He started to cut into him, deeply, his bare hands becoming slick with the maggot infested blood.

_**CUT**_

"I can make you all better…" he was laughing with his mouth but crying with his eyes. Blood squirted onto his cheek, into his mouth. He could taste it all over his tongue, it tasted like Spirit. So the real Spirit was in here somewhere… just dissected by the maggots and flies, all he had to do… was put his weapon back together again.

_**RIP**_

The voice was screaming now, it seemed to be thriving on the actions of his hands as he tore into his only friend's sleeping body, slicing and rearranging.

_**TEAR**_

Why was he still crying…? He had to do this… HAD to… Spirit needed him… needed him to fix what was wrong…

_**DISSECT**_

His sleeves had turned red with blood, it was all he could smell. The slick feeling on the hot, viscous fluid against his skin was driving him mad with excitement. He remembered… he fucking remembered this feeling! How young had he been? How long since his hands had last delved into the human body to take it apart and put it all back together like a puzzle of the flesh.

_FRANKEN!_

That voice…? Who was that…? It didn't sound like the one that usually screamed at him…

_FRANKEN WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?_

Oh… he realized it now… this was a memory… that voice… that was his father… It had been about six years since he heard that voice… but it was just a memory… a memory of his father's words that were ten years old by now.

"I'm dissecting Papa… I'm fixing what's wrong… just like the doctors in our house…" he recited the same words he had used back then, the words that struck his father more deeply than any knife or bullet ever could. The words combined with the images, that made the calm man lose his cool and actually cry. Franken did not think men cried before that day… the day his father broke…

_Let her go… Franken, just let her go…_

"But I can fix her…"

_There's nothing to fix, Franken! She's gone!_

"I can fix her head… just like a real doctor…"

_Did you at least find her this way…?_

"No… she was hanging up when I found her…"

_Dear God… Franken…_

Why was he having this dialogue with a shade? His father wasn't here at the school. There was no reason for Franken to reason with a figure that was only in his mind… Plus, it brought up bad memories… really bad memories… memories of his first human dissection… of his home… of his dad's tears… of his mom's smile…

Frozen…

_**Didn't it feel good…?**_

That voice was back, the one that was guiding his hands through Spirit's body. He wasn't sure how the voice knew about that… after all, the only voice that lived in his head back then was his own. This voice was still kind of new…

_**Cutting into her skin…**_

He couldn't argue with the voice. Then and now… it didn't matter- time didn't matter as long as the scalpel was in his hands.

_**You're a monster, Franken…**_

She whispered it in his ear, her words dripping like poison. He did not want to listen to that sort of talk. After all he was doing nothing wrong. How else was he going to help Spirit get the maggots out of him if he did not do it himself?

_**There's nothing there…**_

He could feel the words crawl into his ears and hum against his ear canal.

_**Is there?**_

He was standing perfectly still, gazing ahead, afraid to look down, afraid that the buzzing noise uttered the truth. He would never have done it if that were true. He was HELPING!

_**LOOK!**_

His head jerked downward as if on a string and he felt like he wanted to throw up again. It had all been a hallucination… everything… the bugs, the voices… everything but the dissection of his one and only friend…

_He had done it… really done it…_

_He hurt Spirit! Betrayed him._

With shaking hands he started to sew Spirit back together, fixing some of the damage as best as he could manage. He had gotten some things reversed, but for the most part he had managed to put the red head back together the way he had been before it all started. He wished it had been part of the hallucination, that the red head on the table would vanish into a pool of madness or turn into a dog or a cat… something… anything other than stay the way he was… sleeping, that trusting smile on his face as his meister tore into him.

He cleaned up the mess and carried Spirit back to their room, putting him on the bed, where he rolled over, none the wiser.

Franken stood there, hovering over him, staring at his sleeping form with the same horrified wide eyed expression that had consumed his features since the realization hit. He leaned down, his arms were shaking, tears falling onto his weapon's cheeks.

_Spirit…_

He slid down the wall, sitting outside of his room.

_**It's like I said…**_

He put his face in his hands, letting the tears run full force.

_**You're a monster, Franken…**_


End file.
